Christmas Seasons Past Shiver Vermont Timbers. Recent Years, Not So Much

 Sure, we have some pretty nippy weather coming up this weekend, and there's snow in the forecast here and there.  

A pre-Christmas snow globe look to Burlington's
Intervale in December, 2017.  Holiday season
cold and snow use to be pretty extreme in Vermont
decades ago, but in recent years, not so much. 

But comparing this season with Vermont's holiday season history of intense cold, blizzards shows just how wimpy pre-Christmas weather has gotten in recent years.   

As I mentioned this past Sunday, this has been a pretty easy early winter.  In many years in the week or so leading up to Christmas, the weather turned Vermonters' Ho Ho Ho quickly into Bah Humbug.

The most recent example came just last year, when destructive flooding smashed parts of the state on December 18-19, inundating neighborhoods, already damaged by floods a few months later, and ones that would be damage again the following July. 

More often than not, though, the pre-Christmas rush has been marked by intense cold and way too much snow and wind.

FRIGID CHRISTMAS HISTORY

According to David Ludlum's Vermont Weather Book, the worst example of this takes us way back to 1835.   The "high" temperature on December 16, 1835 was in the mid-teens below zero. Northwest gales that day probably plunged wind chills into the 40s or even 50s below zero.

Some other notable Christmas season cold snaps that will make this weekend's expected overnight lows near 0 seem like a walk on the beach at Key West:

1942: Early season record cold greeted Christmas shoppers on December 20. Lows included 23 below in Burlington, minus 29 in St. Johnsbury and 32 below in Newport. 

1955: Records still stand for the coldest for so early in the season in Burlington, where it was 22 below in December 21, minus 20 on December 22, and then "warmed" up to a balmy -18 on the 23rd. At least Christmas Day itself that year was warm, as temperatures rocketed up to 41 degrees.

1958: West Burke was below zero every day from December 8 to 27, with the temperature dropping to 29 below on the 11th and minus 30 on the 12th.  Of the 25 days leading up to Christmas that year in Burlington, lows on 21 days were in the single numbers above or below zero. 

1970: This was probably the harshest pre-Christmas on record if you combine low temperatures and extreme snowfall. Repeated snowstorms with intense cold started on December 4 that year.  By Christmas Day, there was 32 inches of snow on the ground in Burlington. 

Since we're talking about pre-Christmas weather, December 22, 1970 stands out. Heavy snow, strong winds and subzero cold all combined to put the kibosh on pretty much every holiday party planned that day. Temperatures stayed below zero all day in most of Vermont amid heavy snowfall and gale force winds. Blizzards, especially those that cold, are no fun.

Montpelier had 31 inches of new snow between Dec. 17-24, 1970 bringing the depth of snow on the ground to 43 inches on Christmas Day. Temperatures were as low as 21 below in Montpelier a low of minus 21 and a high of 2 above with 5 inches of snow that 

1989: This was l the coldest December on record in Burlington. Fourteen days between the first of the month and Christmas got below zero in Burlington. In Montpelier, not one day that December got above freezing until the 31st, and 24 days got below zero.

WARM RECENT DECEMBERS

Recent years have mostly been just the opposite of this frigid pre-Christmas and Christmas history in Vermont. 

On Christmas Eve, 2015, for instance, the temperature reached 68 degrees in Burlington, which is the warmest December on record. It was a balmy 70 in Rutland that day.  

Fresh green daffodil shoots pop up Christmas morning,
2020 amid record warmth in the 60s.

On Christmas morning 2020, it was 65 degrees in Burlington for a new record high.

  At 8 a.m. EST that Christmas morning, the Lower 48's warmest U.S. weather station was, of all places, Highgate, Vermont, on the Canadian border with a temperature of 65 degrees.   At that hour, it was 54 in Miami and 49 in Phoenix. 

December 16 and 17, 2021 both reached 60 degrees in Burlington.  

This coming weekend, we in Vermont are expecting the sharpest pre-Christmas cold snap since at least 2019.  Which actually isn't saying much, given the warm Decembers of the past decade.

High temperatures this weekend and the start of next week will probably only make it into the teens to around 20, with lows of 0 to 10 below, even chillier than that in the colder mountain valleys.  

That kind of weather would have almost felt like a warm spell during many of the frigid Decembers back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

And true to modern form, after the cold snap this weekend, it seems likely Vermont temperatures will likely soar to well above normal levels as we head into Christmas next week.